It was a bluebird day in Donnelly for our February PhotoWalkabout. Four inches of fresh snow fell overnight and the morning greeted us with beautiful sunshine and some of Idaho's best marshmallow clouds for our adventure into a wintering elk herd. We filled two sleighs with 28 diehard photographers.

As the Clydesdales took us into the meadows by the the Gold Fork River, our sleighmasters regaled us with elk lore. We all learned a lot about elk and their intricate relationship with other local wildlife. Upon our arrival, the elk cows converged on the sleighs to get their fill of hay, which we happened to be sitting on. You don't get any closer than that.

We got lucky too. According to our driver, the bull elk tend to stay off by themselves and don't often mingle with the cows while the sleighs are passing through. But today they eyed us for awhile, then jumped over a fence like it wasn't there to come get their free meal. Or maybe to court the ladies. In any case, having a huge 6-point bull nosing hay out from under you is something you don't forget.

After our elk adventure, we met for lunch at Donnelly's great (and only) pizza joint, then split off for more Long Valley exploration. Thanks to everyone who came and we look forward to seeing you at our next PhotoWalkabout on March 19.

January 19th marks the date of our first "Smorgasbord" event... a different take on a Photo Walkabout.

A Photo Workshop Smorgasbord is made up of multiple classes offered over a two hour period. Lots of people have registered and we can't wait to pull it off. For our first one, we have 6 classes by 3 teachers, and participants can choose to attend two sessions.

Here's what's on tap:

The Art of Seeing / Zen Photography

Lightroom - Rapid Fire to Great Photos

It's All About Light / Flash Intro

Photographing People

Lightroom Secrets Revealed

Low Light and Night Photography

If it's a success (and it will be!), expect to see more in the coming year.

Happy shooting!

Don, Jack and Paul at Sawtooth Photo Pros

UPDATE:

We had almost 50 people attend tonight - even better than our best projections! What a great group - we loved it and plan to do more of these in the coming year. Happy shooting!

Our December Photo Walkabout is special. If you like the idea of being surrounded by 300,000 sparkly LED lights, warmed by bonfires, watching toy trains, and drinking hot chocolate along the festive walkways, Winter Garden aGlow is for you. The Idaho Botanical Garden goes all out every year to make each Winter Garden aGlow better and brighter than the one before.

We'll meet at 6:15 pm in the courtyard by the gift shop and warming tent. Don and Jack will share a few tips and tricks for shooting at night, and then we'll head off into fantasy land to photograph every one of those 300,000 lights. At 8:30, we'll regroup in the courtyard to swap stories and warm up with hot chocolate.

Our SPP Photo Walkabouts will be hosted by Boise Photo Walk, a great group of local folks interested in the love of photography. To join our December Walkabout, RSVP here: Winter Garden aGlow Photo Walkabout.

Bootcamp is the place to start; we cover everything from camera controls to creative vision with hands-on instruction, indoors and out. You'll love each of the five evenings as you master your gear, lighting, composition, and live-action scenarios.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Elements introduce you to the magic of post-processing. You'll be bringing your photographs to brilliant life with amazing tools and techniques in each 3-week class.

Intro to Flash (3 sessions) will open up a whole new world of light for you. It's not as daunting as you think!

]]>sawtoothphotopros@yahoo.com (Sawtooth Photo Pros LLC)AdobeElementsLightroomcameracompositioncreativityflashphotographyhttp://www.sawtoothphotopros.com/blog/2015/9/school-zoneWed, 30 Sep 2015 07:04:48 GMTCloverdale Artist Serieshttp://www.sawtoothphotopros.com/blog/2015/9/cloverdale-artist-series
We are excited to announce that Sawtooth Photo Pros will be the featured artists at the Cloverdale September Artist Series on Thursday, September 17 from 6 pm to 8 pm. Light refreshments and free admission! Come join us at the Cloverdale Community Reception Center at the Cloverdale Funeral Home on - you guessed it - Cloverdale Road.

What's the #1 critical factor in photography? A better camera, perhaps? A slew of strobes and softboxes? Creative design? We'll go out on a limb here and say "none of the above." We think that curiosity is the key to everything.

Without curiosity, equipment doesn't matter. A Nikon D3 can make a perfectly good snapshot. Without curiosity, a truck full of lighting equipment is useless. Where should the light flow? Ya gotta be curious enough to experiment. Without curiosity, a university MBA in creative design just adds to the heap of unemployed advertiser wannabees.

Curiosity asks "what if" incessantly. Curiosity is insatiable with experimentation. Curiosity digs deeper, understanding the masters and builds up before it tears down. Curiosity isn't limited to its own working genre - a curious photographer will be as interested in physics, music, literature, and history (and the list goes on) as he is in photography itself.

In our classes, we try to instill curiosity and a sense of wonder in our students. With curiosity as the foundation, photography becomes a lifelong pursuit of excellence in all areas of life.